In the celebration of the day of the political prisonner the victims of the Franco repression meet in the jail of Valencia. Among them are parvenues, mafiosi, bankers, and a communist ...
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In the celebration of the day of the political prisonner the victims of the Franco repression meet in the jail of Valencia. Among them are parvenues, mafiosi, bankers, and a communist priest...Written by
Miguel A. Andrade <andrade@gredos.cnb.uam.es>

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Spanish coral film dealing with a merciless denounce to hypocrite society located at a prison , being masterfully directed by veteran Berlanga and full of a high level of ingenious humor , including relentless critical but in malevolent intention . A bustling comedy with an excellent plethora of Spanish players and an interesting screenplay by the same director , being based on a story written by his son Jorge Garcia Berlanga , but this time without collaboration of his usual Rafael Azcona . It takes place at Modelo Prison of Valencia , it deals upon a bunch of motley people , the celebration of the day of the political inmate , the victims of the repression meet in the jail celebrating a party organized by Quintanilla (Jose Sacristan) when appear a multitude of characters and later occurs a mutiny . Among them are the organizer (Jose Sacristan) , a toilet seller (Jose Sazatornil), a mafiosi (Torrebruno) , bankers (Juan Luis Galiardo) , a communist priest (Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez) , a Minister (Joaquin Climent) and many others .

In the flick there are especially busy comedy , humor , frantic pace , joy , amusing gags , rowdy satire , noisy hustle and social critical ; but the main problem is that if you are foreigner you will have to know well the Spanish society to understand the double-senses and jokes . Furthermore , it contains certain confusion , bustle and relies heavily in exaggerated mayhem ; being in anyway clearly inferior to his former masterpieces. The main and support actors stand out under perfect direction of Berlanga very far from the tenderness that carried out in previous works , including a bitter , pessimistic mirror on the Spanish society by that time . We can find very fun characters, all of them caricatures of the "spanish way of life" . The movie displays a Spanish star-studded such as : Jose Sazatornil in a similar role to Jaume Canivell who starred in ¨La Escopeta Nacional¨, Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez (Berlanga's habitual) , Manuel Alexandre (Berlanga's also regular) , Agustin Gonzalez , Amparo Soler Leal , Jose Maria Tasso (costumary secondary from the 60s known as Flequillo) , Chus Lampreave (Almodovar's ordinary) , Antonio Gamero , Miguel Rellan , Monica Randall , Francisco Merino , Jose Sancho , Luis Ciges (Berlanga's usual) , Jose Luis Borau (a notorious filmmaker) and of course the incombustible Santiago Segura , among others . Berlanga's conceptual and political audacity, so evident in this film though achieved a limited success . ¨Todos a La Carcel¨ turns out to be a nice picture plenty of diverting situations as well as black humor and social hypocrisy , although the film didn't achieved much success and failed at Spanish box office.

Direction by Luis Garcia Berlanga is pretty good , he shows his skill for edition , realizing long shots with crowd who moves easily and shows the miseries of an amoral society . Passable cinematography by Alfredo Mayo , though is necessary a right remastering . Lively musical score by the band named Suburbano . Berlanga filmed several polemic movies during the 50s , all of them were beset by difficulties with the censors caused by real critical to social stratum such as ¨Bienvenido Mister Marshall¨ (1953) , a very good film which tended not to be very well received by the censor for its acidity and considered to be one of the best Spanish films of the history ; however, his strong portrait of Spanish society , plenty of sharpness , didn't please the pro-Franco authorities . His next joint venture was ¨Los Jueves, Milagro¨ (1957), it was modified by the censors and delayed for several years before its eventual release . Subsequently , Berlanga made ¨Placido¨ (1961) masterfully played by Cassen , this is the film debut for the great producer Alfredo Matas and received an Oscar nomination in 1963 , being well-received at the International Festivals , reviewing the useless charity , it's a sublime film but with censorship realized by this great maestro Luis Garcia Berlanga . Later on , Berlanga made one of his best films: ¨El Verdugo¨ (1963), one of the undisputed masterpieces and fundamental in filmography of Luis Garcia Berlanga and shot at the height of his creativity, in a period cultural difficult, where the enormous censorship of the political regime, exacerbated the ingenuity and imagination of the scriptwriters . He continued filming other interesting pictures as in 1973 he went to Paris to begin filming ¨Grandeur nature¨ with Michael Piccoli , another problematic film , focusing this time on the fetishism of a man who falls in love with a doll . Several years later , after Franco's death, he filmed a trilogy comprising ¨La Escopeta Nacional¨ (1978), ¨Patrimonio Nacional¨ (1981) and ¨Nacional III¨ (1982), where he clarified the evident disorders in the Spanish upper , middle-class upon being confronted with a new political status quo , realizing a sour denounce of the Spanish society . Berlanga ulteriorly shot a peculiar film titled ¨La Vaquilla¨ (1985) plenty of Spanish-star-cast and set in the Spanish Civil War , resulting to be the first time dealing with this convulsive period in comedy style . Following the same themes, he went on filming coral films such as ¨Moros and Cristianos¨ and ¨Todos a Carcel¨ (1993) that won three Goya Awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Sound ; being his final film : ¨Paris Tombuctu¨. Rating : 6, acceptable and passable . Essential and indispensable watching for Berlanga aficionados . Well worth seeing .

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